Download or read book Theodore Metochites written by Ioannis Polemis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The statesman and scholar Theodore Metochites was one of the most important personalities of the fourteenth-century Byzantine Empire. A close advisor to the emperor Andronikos II and restorer of the famous monastery of Chora in Constantinople, Metochites left various writings including orations, poems, essays and commentaries on classical and religious texts, in which he discusses the numerous problems that troubled him and his contemporaries, such as the decline of the state and the tension between public life and that of the philosopher. In this book, Ioannis Polemis provides the first in-depth study of Metochites' oeuvre, revealing the complex way he represented the authorial self to critique the politics and mores of his day, whilst at the same time shielding himself from potential criticism. Polemis details the way Metochites deftly manipulated figures and tropes from classical antiquity and early Christianity to justify his role in public life, which was traditionally shunned by scholars in the pursuit of 'logos'. The book provides unique insights into one of the late Empire's most important figures, as well as more widely deepening our understanding of classical reception in Byzantium and the social, political and intellectual climate of Constantinople in the fourteenth century.
Download or read book Rhetoric in Byzantium written by Elizabeth Jeffreys and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Rhetoric in Byzantium' explores the ways in which rhetoric functioned in Byzantine society - as a tool for the effective communication of ideas and ideologies, but at times also a barrier that inhibited the expression of real feelings and everyday realities, and imposed a burden of decoding on outsiders. After an introduction on the practical and textual background to Byzantine rhetoric, the essays are grouped in five sections. The first two deal with the basis of rhetoric in Byzantium and its public uses, principally in imperial and ecclesiastical ceremonial. The next sections look at how rhetoric affects the definition of literature in a Byzantine context and the aesthetic to be used in approaching Byzantine literature, with reference to current critical approaches, and specifically at the role of rhetoric in the writing of history - does it only obscure the facts, or does the rhetorical process itself provide information at other levels? The final essays examine the interaction of the written word and pictorial representation and the question of whether real connections between rhetorical training and artistic production can be demonstrated.
Download or read book Byzantine Philosophy written by Basil Tatakis and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western studies tend to view Byzantine philosophy either as a minor offshoot of western European thought, or a handy storehouse for documents and ideas until they are needed. A scholar of philosophy (Aristotle U. of Thessaloniki), Tatakis (1896-1996) finds the view limiting, pointing out that during the Roman period, few Greeks learned Latin but Romans were not considered educated without a founding in Greek, and that Byzantine Christianity has its own trajectory unconcerned with how it deviates from western orthodoxy.
Download or read book Studies in Byzantine Monasticism written by Alice-Mary Talbot and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-02 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes seventeen essays on Byzantine monasticism, focusing on the 9th to 15th centuries. Envisaged as a companion Variorum volume to Talbot's Women and Religious Life in Byzantium (2001), this compendium complements its predecessor by focusing more attention on male monasteries, hermits and holy mountains, while offering some pioneering studies of female patrons, rural nuns, and the links of many Byzantine women to Mount Athos. The volume also complements Talbot's 2019 monograph, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 800-1453, by offering detailed analyses of topics that could only be briefly addressed in that book. Introductory essays include an overview of the historical development of Byzantine monasteries and holy mountains, emphasising the intertwining of monasticism with urban and rural society. Subsequent essays explore the regimen at coenobitic monasteries, while paying considerable attention to the less well-known lifestyles of hermits, especially those on holy mountains. Other topics include monastery gardens and horticulture; the culture of the refectory; challenges for adolescent novices; factors influencing the choice of a monastery’s foundation site; female patronage of monastery construction and restoration; the conversion of monasteries from male to female and vice-versa; rules regarding personal poverty for monastics; and the choice of a monastic name.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition written by Graham Speake and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-01-31 with total page 2407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hellenism is the living culture of the Greek-speaking peoples and has a continuing history of more than 3,500 years. The Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition contains approximately 900 entries devoted to people, places, periods, events, and themes, examining every aspect of that culture from the Bronze Age to the present day. The focus throughout is on the Greeks themselves, and the continuities within their own cultural tradition. Language and religion are perhaps the most obvious vehicles of continuity; but there have been many others--law, taxation, gardens, music, magic, education, shipping, and countless other elements have all played their part in maintaining this unique culture. Today, Greek arts have blossomed again; Greece has taken its place in the European Union; Greeks control a substantial proportion of the world's merchant marine; and Greek communities in the United States, Australia, and South Africa have carried the Hellenic tradition throughout the world. This is the first reference work to embrace all aspects of that tradition in every period of its existence.
Download or read book A Greek Thomist written by Matthew C. Briel and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matthew Briel examines, for the first time, the appropriation and modification of Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of providence by fifteenth-century Greek Orthodox theologian Gennadios Scholarios. Briel investigates the intersection of Aquinas’s theology, the legacy of Greek patristic and later theological traditions, and the use of Aristotle’s philosophy by Latin and Greek Christian thinkers in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. A Greek Thomist reconsiders our current understanding of later Byzantine theology by reconfiguring the construction of what constitutes “orthodoxy” within a pro- or anti-Western paradigm. The fruit of this appropriation of Aquinas enriches extant sources for historical and contemporary assessments of Orthodox theology. Moreover, Scholarios’s grafting of Thomas onto the later Greek theological tradition changes the account of grace and freedom in Thomistic moral theology. The particular kind of Thomism that Scholarios develops avoids the later vexing issues in the West of the de auxiliis controversy by replacing the Augustinian theology of grace with the highly developed Greek theological concept of synergy. A Greek Thomist is perfect for students and scholars of Greek Orthodoxy, Greek theological traditions, and the continued influence of Thomas Aquinas.
Download or read book Epigram Art and Devotion in Later Byzantium written by Ivan Drpić and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-21 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using epigrammatic poetry as a framework, investigates the interplay between art and religious devotion in the later Byzantine period.
Download or read book Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts 12th 15th Centuries written by Baukje van den Berg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume to explore the commentaries on ancient texts produced and circulating in Byzantium. It adopts a broad chronological perspective (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) and examines different types of commentaries on ancient poetry and prose within the context of the study and teaching of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and science. By discussing the exegetical literature of the Byzantines as embedded in the socio-cultural context of the Komnenian and Palaiologan periods, the book analyses the frameworks and networks of knowledge transfer, patronage and identity building that motivated the Byzantine engagement with the ancient intellectual and literary tradition.
Download or read book Art History 101 Without the Exams written by Annie Montgomery Labatt and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is something a masterpiece? Art History 101 . . . Without the Exams is about revisiting famous works of art that we may have studied in an art history class or seen in a textbook. Each discussion delves into one great masterpiece and asks the questions that help us understand how it has shaped history. What is the piece about? How did the original owner look at this piece? Where was it originally placed? Why is it in this museum now? How did it get famous? From the sixth-century mosaics of Ravenna and the painted bulls of Altamira, Spain, dated 12,500 BCE, to an incense burner from twelfth-century Seljuk Iran, frescoes from a Late Byzantine funerary chapel, and masterworks by Botticelli, Caravaggio, Monet, and Sargent, this book shows readers how to look closely. It welcomes us to the joy of art history—but without the papers, notes, and exams.
Download or read book Receptions of Hellenism in Early Modern Europe written by Natasha Constantinidou and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of modes of receiving and responding to Greek culture in diverse contexts throughout early modern Europe, in order to encourage a more over-arching understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of early modern Hellenism and its multiple receptions.
Download or read book Between Constantinople and Rome written by Kathleen Maxwell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the artistic and political context that led to the production of a truly exceptional Byzantine illustrated manuscript. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, codex grec 54 is one of the most ambitious and complex manuscripts produced during the Byzantine era. This thirteenth-century Greek and Latin Gospel book features full-page evangelist portraits, an extensive narrative cycle, and unique polychromatic texts. However, it has never been the subject of a comprehensive study and the circumstances of its commission are unknown. In this book Kathleen Maxwell addresses the following questions: what circumstances led to the creation of Paris 54? Who commissioned it and for what purpose? How was a deluxe manuscript such as this produced? Why was it left unfinished? How does it relate to other Byzantine illustrated Gospel books? Paris 54's innovations are a testament to the extraordinary circumstances of its commission. Maxwell's multi-disciplinary approach includes codicological and paleographical evidence together with New Testament textual criticism, artistic and historical analysis. She concludes that Paris 54 was never intended to copy any other manuscript. Rather, it was designed to eclipse its contemporaries and to physically embody a new relationship between Constantinople and the Latin West, as envisioned by its patron. Analysis of Paris 54's texts and miniature cycle indicates that it was created at the behest of a Byzantine emperor as a gift to a pope, in conjunction with imperial efforts to unify the Latin and Orthodox churches. As such, Paris 54 is a unique witness to early Palaeologan attempts to achieve church union with Rome.
Download or read book The Byzantine Turks 1204 1461 written by Rustam Shukurov and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-05-09 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Byzantine Turks, 1204–1461 Rustam Shukurov offers an account of the Turkic minority in Late Byzantium including the Nicaean, Palaiologan, and Grand Komnenian empires. The demography of the Byzantine Turks and the legal and cultural aspects of their entrance into Greek society are discussed in detail. Greek and Turkish bilingualism of Byzantine Turks and Tourkophonia among Greeks were distinctive features of Byzantine society of the time. Basing his arguments upon linguistic, social, and cultural evidence found in a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, Rustam Shukurov convincingly demonstrates how Oriental influences on Byzantine life led to crucial transformations in Byzantine mentality, culture, and political life. The study is supplemented with an etymological lexicon of Oriental names and words in Byzantine Greek.
Download or read book The Oxford History of Byzantium written by Cyril Mango and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-24 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium linked the ancient and modern worlds, shaping traditions and handing down to both Eastern and Western civilization a vibrant legacy. The Oxford History of Byzantium is the only history to provide in concise form detailed historical coverage from the Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople and assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Against a backdrop of stories of emperors, intrigues, battles, and bishops the contributors to this beautifully illustratedvolume explore everyday life in cities and villages, manufacture and trade, machinery of government, the church as an instrument of state, minorities, education, literary activity, beliefs and superstitions, monasticism, iconoclasm, the rise of Islam, and the fusion with Western, or Latin, culture.
Download or read book Warfare in Late Byzantium 1204 1453 written by Savvas Kyriakidis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-05-23 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Byzantine attitudes towards warfare at a time of crisis when the empire ceased to be a first rate power in the Mediterranean. It investigates the correspondence between official rhetoric and propaganda, on the one hand, and military realities, on the other. It explores the military ethos of the late Byzantine aristocracy and examines Byzantine perceptions of military leadership in comparison to contemporary western European military thinking. The organisation and nature of military operations and the role of the various groups of soldiers are explored to set Byzantine warfare in the wider geographical and cultural context. In addition, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the influences other medieval cultures exerted on Byzantine military thought, organisation and practice.
Download or read book Margins and Metropolis written by Judith Herrin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-07 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the political, cultural, and ecclesiastical forces that linked the metropolis of Byzantium to the margins of its far-flung empire, especially the region of Hellas and Peloponnesos in central and southern Greece.
Download or read book Hesychasm and Art written by Anita Strezova and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Although many of the iconographic traditions in Byzantine art formed in the early centuries of Christianity, they were not petrified within a time warp. Subtle changes and refinements in Byzantine theology did find reflection in changes to the iconographic and stylistic conventions of Byzantine art. This is a brilliant and innovative book in which Dr Anita Strezova argues that a religious movement called Hesychasm, especially as espoused by the great Athonite monk St Gregory Palamas, had a profound impact on the iconography and style of Byzantine art, including that of the Slav diaspora, of the late Byzantine period. While many have been attracted to speculate on such a connection, none until now has embarked on proving such a nexus. The main stumbling blocks have included the need for a comprehensive knowledge of Byzantine theology; a training in art history, especially iconological, semiotic and formalist methodologies; extensive fieldwork in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Russia, and a working knowledge of Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Latin as well as several modern European languages, French, German, Russian and Italian. These are some of the skills which Dr Strezova has brought to her topic.” Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA Adjunct Professor of Art History School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics The Australian National University
Download or read book Biography of a Landmark The Chora Monastery and Kariye Camii in Constantinople Istanbul from Late Antiquity to the 21st Century written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its reconversion to a mosque in August 2020, the former monastic church of Saint Saviour in Chora entered yet another phase of its long history. The present book examines the Chora/Kariye Camii site from a transcultural perspective, tracing its continuous transformations in form and function from Late Antiquity to the present day. Whereas previous literature has almost exclusively placed emphasis on the Byzantine phase of the building’s history, including the status of its mosaics and paintings as major works of Palaiologan culture, this study is the first to investigate the shifting meanings with which the Chora/Kariye Camii site has been invested over time and across uninterrupted alterations, interventions, and transformations. Bringing together contributions from archaeologists, art historians, philologists, anthroplogists and historians, the volume provides a new framework for understanding not only this building but, more generally, edifices that have undergone interventions and transformations within multicultural societies. The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
